


Harry Potter and the Freedom of Submission

by RedMyst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A Highly Sexed Romance, Age Difference, Anal Sex, BDSM, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Bottom Harry Potter, Dark Harry, Drama, End of GoF onwards, Gay Sex, Gratuitously Hot!Voldemort, Kink, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Masochist Harry Potter, Master/Pet, Master/Slave, Minor Character Death, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Pain Kink, Perverted Harry Potter, Pet harry potter, Politics, Porn With Plot, Possessive Tom Riddle, Public Masturbation, Public Sex, Sadist Tom Riddle, Sane Tom Riddle, Sex Magic, Sex Positive, Slave Harry Potter, Small Penis, Submissive Harry Potter, Top Sirius Black, Top Tom Riddle, Torture, Twink Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28770141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMyst/pseuds/RedMyst
Summary: Harry Potter's destiny had been written for him before he was even born; he was to become the noble hero, the vanquisher, the knight in shining armour, the martyr - the symbol. He'd never had a choice.Shortly after his fourth year, he realises that he does have a choice after all. A choice that will change the fate of the world forever.Well, the world can go to hell. Harry makes his choice.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Sirius Black/Harry Potter
Comments: 49
Kudos: 293
Collections: Fanfics Harry Potter não concluidas, Started stories





	1. The Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idle sexual fantasy that somehow grew legs and sprouted a plot. God help us all. It'll get pretty dark at points, because that's fun - if you're not keen on that, it might not be for you.
> 
> It'll also have quite a lot of occasionally peculiar sex - if you're not keen on that, it's definitely not for you. I'm a weirdo. Go figure.
> 
> I've debated for a while whether to post this, with it being quite dark and all that, but I figured what the hell.
> 
> This is the first fanfic I've written in over a decade - I used to write when I was a young teen, and the pandemic has awakened the habit - so if the dialogue doesn't feel natural or it doesn't flow right, I can only apologise. I'm using this more as a practice run for more serious work, trying to exercise my imagination a bit, and prove to myself I can actually see a story through to completion.
> 
> It's only partly-finished so far, so if the plot starts to wander, that means I've lost control and we're veering wildly into an iceberg. Abandon ship!
> 
> I claim zero ownership over any of the intellectual property within this story, and write this entirely for fun. I also don't claim any kind of agreement with any of JKR's more problematic views - seriously, what is it about becoming a billionaire that suddenly makes people into cartoon villains?
> 
> However, the HP series (and moreover, the thriving culture of fanfiction and rewrites that has followed in its wake) has provided me with a great deal of comfort and escapism for two full decades now, which, for someone growing up riddled with self-doubt and anxieties, was pretty significant.

It was a sweltering June day, in a branch of Sainburys supermarket in a small town in Surrey, and Petunia Dursley was in a foul mood. Her good-for-nothing nephew, Harry Potter, had arrived back from his fourth year of at that horrible, _freakish_ school the previous day. However, as her perfect son Dudley was currently doing work-experience with his father, a senior manager at Grunnings Drills - she dragged the scruffy boy along with her. At least the ungrateful freak could put himself to some use and carry the bags for her.

Somehow, this summer the boy was even weirder than usual - almost completely silent. When her husband picked him up at Kings Cross station, complete silence - not even a thank you acknowledging the two-hour round trip he'd had to take. In fact, since the boy got home, he'd not heard anything from him except "Yes, Aunt Petunia," or "No, Aunt Petunia." since he got home. If it wasn't for that, she'd think he'd gone mute or something.

Maybe he was having some sort of _goth_ phase - Petunia somehow managing to pronounce the italics in her own head. Did freaks have goth phases? She fervently hoped not - at least his usual freakishness wasn't actually visible to the neighbours, imagine if he started wearing make-up or something?

As she was absent-mindedly perusing a display of canteloupe melons, she jumped at a voice just behind her.

"Petunia Dursley, is that you, my dear?"

She looked up, and schooled her face into a smile when she recognised the woman and her rather put-upon looking husband - she was one of the older ladies from her church 's singing group. Hyacinth, she remembered - although she'd never caught the woman's surname.

Horrible singing voice, as far as Petunia was concerned - far worse than her own - and an overinflated opinion of herself. 'Not', thought Petunia, 'my type at all.' 

However, Petunia greeted the slightly batty woman with an enthusiasm she didn't quite feel - appearances must be kept up, after all.

"Boy!" she hissed to the side, pressing a shopping list into Harry's hand. "Take the trolley and fetch everything on this list. I want you back here in ten minutes, no later!"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." he mumbled, taking the list and pushing the trolley away. Aunt Petunia was already ignoring him, although he had to roll his eyes when he caught the older lady trilling "Is that the nephew you were talking about? He does look like a criminal sort with that scar and everything... you really are a saint for taking him in, Petunia, I wouldn't dream of having someone like that under my roof..."

\---

Honestly, Harry didn't really need the ten minutes to find what was on the list, but dragging his heels earned himself a few minutes of peace from his Aunt. He'd rummaged through a couple of magazines out of a vague curiosity at what had been happening in the muggle world while he'd been gone - honestly, nothing particularly interesting. He picked up one at random, and flicked through it. 

About ten words into an interview with someone called Marti Pellow, he sighed and replaced it on the rack and turned to head back to his aunt, when out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a display of padlocks. Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he realised that these were the same type that his Uncle Vernon used to lock up his possessions in the cupboard every year, and an idea formed.

He glanced from side to side, but couldn't spot any CCTV cameras in the area, and nobody seemed to be around. Harry slipped one of the padlocks into his pocket, and hurried back to his aunt. Nobody noticed anything amiss as they left - Harry was good at not standing out.

Harry snorted to himself as they stepped outside - if there was a world championships for blending into the background, nobody would even notice he was there.

\---

Later that night, around 1am, Harry crept out of his room, wearing an old t-shirt that he sometimes slept in - although, given that it used to belong to his cousin, it was three sticks and some string away from being a four-person tent. He also had an old woolen scarf slung over one shoulder. 

Avoiding the creaky floorboard outside his Aunt and Uncles room, he held his breath for a second. The noises coming from both other bedrooms reassured him - Vernon and Dudley were both snoring as usual. Well, either that, or they'd taken up late-night carpentry. 

He tiptoed downstairs, knowing the alarm hadn't been set (it had a habit of going off - Vernon thought it had a fault, but the engineer hadn't found anything. Harry suspected it just didn't like him).

He stepped quietly towards the back room leading to the garage, and after carefully rummaging through his uncle's tools, found a set of bolt cutters. Heading back to the cupboard, he put his old scarf on the floor, stripped off his t-shirt to wrap around the padlock in an effort to muffle the noise, and cut through the lock with a dull thunk.

The lock dropped silently onto the woolen scarf, and Harry replaced it with his new one. He smiled to himself - now, every night, he could get anything he wanted from his trunk when no-one was around, and nobody would be any the wiser. Maybe Vernon would notice when his key didn't work - but hopefully that wouldn't be until the end of summer, and Vernon would probably just assume the key was getting stuck - it was quite a cheap lock, after all.

It was a small victory, but any victory made his confinement here a little bit easier to deal with. Besides, given there was a returned Dark Lord out for his blood, he'd quite like the opportunity to do a bit of research.

He grabbed a handful of books from his trunk - just enough that he could still conceal them underneath his loose floorboard - and locking the cupboard back up, he went back upstairs to bed.

\---

_Harry slept fitfully. His dreams were interrupted flashes of himself through another's eyes, tied to the gravestone in the Little Hangleton cemetary, furious green eyes flashing as he tried and failed to pull himself free._

Harry jolted awake just as the sun was rising, a sweat over his body. Despite the heat of the night, he felt a slight chill over him; he absent-mindedly noticed he'd kicked his duvet onto the floor while he slept. He shivered, remembering the dream - it felt real, too real. He could still feel the glee of whoever's eyes he was looking through, watching himself struggle, his bare skin shining in the moonlight- 

Wait.

Hang on.

Why was he dreaming of _himself_ , in _that_ graveyard, _naked_?!

He flopped his head back on the pillow, and huffed in exasperation. He then, very quickly, realised he was laid in a pool of his own sweat, and grimacing, rolled back out of bed. 

Wiping himself down with the same t-shirt-cum-tent from earlier, he stopped at his midriff, looking down at himself in surprise. Apparently his penis had decided that dreaming of himself naked was a good enough reason to spring a full stiffy.

Rolling his eyes at his teenage hormones and their appalling taste, he sat down at the small desk and started to read - putting the dream to the back of his mind, sternly telling his cock that he refused to deal with it when it was behaving like this.

\---

"BOY!" a shriek woke Harry up from his sleep. Blinking awake, Harry tried to straighten up, only to realise he'd fallen asleep at his desk, and therefore had managed to stick a page of _Advanced Magical Theory_ to his face with his own drool. 

Peeling it off his face, he dragged himself to his feet, tugged on some sweatpants and the shirt from the previous night, and trudged downstairs - meeting his Aunt Petunia on the way up.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Dudley and Vernon have been up for half an hour already, they need their breakfast..." she trailed off as she looked at his face. Grimacing, she snapped "You look pale. Are you getting ill? I swear, if my Diddikins gets sick, so help me God, I'll... I'll... just get back upstairs!"

Nonplussed, Harry obediently turned around and headed back the way he'd come, wondering at his fortune. He could hear his aunt telling his cousin that they'd get breakfast at McDonalds on the way out today - he vaguely remembered that they were taking him and his friends to a theme park somewhere near Staines, as a reward for completing one whole day of work experience. Vernon said Dudley had worked very hard that day, but given Vernon's low standards for his son, he'd have probably said that even if the boy had stolen two of the drills and gone on a murderous rampage.

Still, it got the three of them out of the way for the day, and that made it as much a reward for Harry as it did Dudley.

\---  
One shower later, one set of sweat-logged bedsheets in the washing machine, and a distinctly-not-sick Harry Potter was sat on the sofa in a loose pair of basketball shorts, munching his way through a ham sandwich, with a new book open in his other hand. The radio was on, quietly playing Seal's _Kiss from a Rose_ , while Harry tried to get his head around magical politics. It was almost as dull as the previous book, but he was slowly figuring it out, and and he figured he should probably get some idea how it all worked. 

Honestly, the more he thought about it, Dumbledore should have been _strung up_ for how exposed and isolated he'd left him. Who lets an 11 year old boy loose in a brand new world in which he's a celebrity, with his every move being monitored and reported on for all to see, with zero training or preparation? Hell, was that even legal? He doubted his Aunt Petunia had ever signed a waiver allowing his photos to be published in the media.

He blinked to clear his thoughts, and got back to his research. 

So, technically, the Ministry of Magic was just a minor department of the British Government, due to the relatively small amount of people it served, and although the Minister was elected, the election could be vetoed without any penalty by the Muggle Prime Minister, who Harry vaguely remembered from watching the news over his uncle's shoulder. Grey haired bloke, big glasses.

The Ministry mostly did day-to-day stuff, like Mr Weasley's department. Everyone seemed to be a head-of something or other, but actually the volume of staff was pretty low, barring Aurors, which was a fancy name for the Wizarding police, or Hit Wizards, which also seemed to be a fancy name for police officers but from the name, sounded more like some sort of magical assassins.

The real power sat with the Wizengamot, which apparently took on the role of the House of Commons, House of Lords, and Supreme Court. Which, conveniently, Albus Dumbledore had been the Chief Warlock of, for quite some time. 

Beyond that, was the International Confederation of Wizards, which seemed to be some kind of United Nations equivalent. Albus Dumbledore headed that up, too, as Supreme Mugwump - Harry snorted to himself. _'Who comes up with these titles?'_

Thinking about it, though, Albus Dumbledore wielded a _frightening_ amount of power in the Wizarding World. Head of _two_ branches of government, and the principal of the only Wizarding school in the British Isles.

Harry flicked back to the section on the headmaster - yes, the man was so powerful he had his own _chapter_ \- and noted that that wasn't even accounting for the time he'd spent as a teacher prior to being headmaster. He'd worked there for nearly a _century_.

Harry snapped the book shut, doing a bit of arithmetic in his head. There were ten Gryffindor witches and wizards in his year. Assuming that was roughly the same for all years and houses, then Britain put out around forty people a year with magical talent. He knew wizards lived longer than muggles, and presumably worked longer than muggles - meaning that since Dumbledore started teaching in the 1910s, he'd taught around three thousand students, who'd gone on to absolutely everywhere in the British workforce. The ministry, the Daily Prophet, the lot. 

Everyone one of them in the past thirty years or so knew him as their kindly headmaster with the twinkly eyes, who could probably ask any favour he liked.

 _'Jesus fucking Christ.'_ thought Harry.

He was interrupted from his reverie by the beeping of the washing machine, and taking his book back upstairs, Harry put it out of his mind and made a start on his chores for the day.

\---

Later that evening, as his relatives were downstairs devouring a large chocolate gateau as a very late supper, Harry scribbled a quick note to Flourish and Blotts - the more he read and learned about the wizarding world, the more he realised he didn't know. He had a funny feeling he was going to need a lot more books.

Sending Hedwig off with the note, and leaving the window open so she could get back in later on, he decided to turn in early, following his rudely-interrupted slumber of the previous night.

\---

_The dream started much like the previous. Himself, a vision of pale naked skin and glaring green eyes, tied to the same stone as before. He stood back and continued to watch himself struggle for a while, smirking as those pretty, effeminate eyes threatened to spill over with tears of frustration._

_Eventually, the boy slumped down, defeated, and he couldn't help but laugh in exquisite pleasure at the boy's defeated demeanour. He extended a hand, and murmured one word._

_"Crucio."_

_The boy instantly seized up, thrashing, slamming himself against the stone in a rictus of pure agony. A scream, briefly bit down upon, escaped in earnest._

_He stood, for who knows how long, revelling in the screams, the agony, the sheer blissful misery of the restrained boy who was before him. A minute? Five minutes? An hour? Who knows._

_No living being had ever felt such bliss as he did at that moment, at the sight of such beautiful torment in the boy in front of him. But then the boy slumps backwards, his screams falling silent, his eyes glazed over, his mind and spirit broken, and that bliss is amplified tenfold._

_His outstretched hand starts to shake - sensation begins to flood through him - pleasure flowing through his whole body, and centering on his cock, and he-_

Harry jolted awake with a moan - just in time for a truly devastating orgasm to rip through him, like wildfire. 

He honestly didn't know how long the spasms and aftershocks lasted, and even after he came down from his euphoric high, he was trembling and insensible for some considerable minutes. Eventually, though, his brain roared into life and the full memory of the dream flooded back in.

He huffed out a long sigh and slumped backwards into his pillow, dragging his hand through his sweaty hair, and resolved to worry about the entirely what-the-fuck dream he'd just had in the morning. Wrestling his irritatingly overactive and hormonal imagination into submission, and ignoring the rapidly cooling sticky mess up his front, he very deliberately built a nice little box in his mind called 'Do Not Even Go There', shoved the memory into that box, bolted it, padlocked it, and dug a hole and buried it.

As he slowly drifted back to sleep, there was just one rebellious thought at the back of his mind about that dream, though. He just couldn't quite escape the nagging sensation he might have... enjoyed it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a few 90s British pop-culture references that will appear here-and-there, given that this is set initially in 1994. As someone who lived through the nineties, albeit as a child, I felt it was worthwhile sprinkling a little something in. If anyone spotted my favourite little Easter Egg in this chapter, please let me know in the comments!
> 
> There's quite a lot of italics that appear in this chapter - sometimes they reference a dream, sometimes someone's idle thoughts, sometimes it's purely Harry emphasising things to be melodramatic. He's a teenager, so I guess we can excuse him that once in a while.
> 
> I've got a couple of proper full-length things planned for in the future - there'll be a full-length mystery HP fanfic, titled 'Harry Potter and the Death of Magic', where our young hero gets to play at being a super-sleuth. 
> 
> I've also planned an original fiction, which is a swashbuckling swords-and-wizards adventure, albeit set in every time period and culture I can think of. Expect pirates, renaissance Italy, ancient Egypt, and Polynesian voyagers to all play a part, plus a nice healthy dose of Lovecraftian madness.
> 
> I have no idea when I'll get around to writing them though - depends how long this pandemic lasts, I suspect.
> 
> Leave kudos and comments please! They feed my ego in these dark, dark times.


	2. The Photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you made it through Chapter One. I'm proud of you. Or disappointed. I'm not sure which yet.  
> I claim zero ownership over any of JKR's intellectual property within this story, and write this entirely for fun. I also don't claim any kind of agreement with any of JKR's more problematic views. Less said about that, the better.  
> More notes at the end - for now, on with the story!

Since Harry had moved into Dudley's second bedroom, probably his biggest annoyance with the room had been the curtains. The curtains themselves were fine enough, plain blue, uninteresting but inoffensive. No, the reason why he didn't like the curtains in his room was that they had an occasional tendency to absolutely fail at being curtains. This was an unfortunate throwback to the days when it used to be his cousin’s junk-room, and the overweight youth had somehow managed to pull the entire rail down. When Harry moved in a few years back, he had made a not-completely-unsuccessful attempt to fix them back in place, but it did mean that every now and again, the whole rail, curtains and all, would come crashing down - usually while he was trying to sleep. 

This was one of those mornings. 

Jolting awake from the noise, Harry groaned and attempted to shelter his eyes from the light with his pillow, but after about two minutes or so he concluded that he was now too far awake, and might as well get out of bed. 

Squinting against the bright morning sunshine, he reached over to his bedside table for his glasses – or at least, he tried to. Entirely misjudging the location of his bedside table, he completely overbalanced in the attempt, tumbling out of bed and landing face-first on the floor with an audible thump. 

He grunted with the impact, rubbing his sore knees. Correction – now he was far too awake. 

Straightening up and fumbling his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, he glared at his alarm clock, as if it was somehow its fault. It made him feel better, for some reason. Hedwig had returned at some point in the night and perched on top of her cage, and from the way she looked at him and ruffled her feathers, he had the strange sensation that she was laughing at him. He couldn’t help but feel it was an odd expression on an owl. 

He stretched the kinks out of his back, and glanced down at his inevitable morning erection. Resisting the temptation to get back into bed and have a nice leisurely wank, he grabbed a clean pair of sweatpants and a tank top that just about fit, and got dressed. 

Grimacing, he immediately took the clothes back off and went to the bathroom to fetch a warm soaked washcloth to clean off the dried cum from last night’s accidental escapade. Still utterly refusing to think about the dream, and his... surprising reaction to it, he then put his clothes back on, and offered Hedwig an owl treat and a scratch on the top of her head. He untied a small parcel from to her leg, the owl-order catalogue he’d asked Flourish & Blotts for the previous evening which he put to one side, and headed downstairs to get a head start on the garden, one of the few chores he actually enjoyed. As he stepped outside, the morning sunshine was pleasant, and the grass was soft and springy under his bare feet.

His Aunt was away for the morning, and Dudley and Vernon for the whole day, Dudley making use of the summer by demanding a litany of trips to theme parks, waterparks, and god-knows-what-else with his friend - and Harry suspected, closeted boyfriend - Piers. Those boys flaunted their alleged heterosexuality in such a way that straight people just wouldn’t bother to – definitely a case of the-lady-doth-protest-too-much. 

Generally Harry made a point of not thinking about Piers and Dudley together, though, given that if and when they finally pulled their heads out of each other’s arses and admitted it to themselves, they would set a new record for the ugliest couple in recorded history. Otherwise, though, he had a complete lack of interest in his relatives and how they passed their time, and so long as they weren’t actually anywhere near him, he absolutely did not care what they were doing. 

Harry completely lost his train of thought when he felt a nick, followed by a sharp stabbing pain in his finger. Yelping and pulling his finger away from the offending rose bush, he immediately stuck his throbbing digit into his mouth to clean off the blood, and inspected it. Not a bad cut, just a tiny little pinprick, but for some reason, his heart was pounding. Which surprised him; it's not like he wasn't used to a little pain, after all. 

He became aware of a pulsing sensation between his legs, and looked down. Oh. _Oh_. It turned out that it wasn't just his finger that was throbbing. 

Gingerly, he reached out to touch the thorn again, softly pressing his left hand against it. Steeling his resolve, he grabbed the thorns, hard, gasping as the pain flowed through his hand and down his arm, and his vision blurred slightly as a torrent of adrenaline and euphoria crashed through him. 

He glanced down, and realised that he may have made an error not wearing underwear, given how an obvious wet spot was forming on the front of his grey sweatpants. 

Panting like he was in heat, he looked around carefully, and seeing nobody else in his line of sight, lowered the front of his sweat pants and hooked them underneath his balls. He knelt there for a moment, just watching his boner twitch in the warm morning sunshine. He wrapped his right hand around his cock, and began to stroke. 

His pounding heart overriding his common sense, he realised he wanted more, so looking around again to be completely sure he was safe, he began to push his trousers down further, past his knees and eventually down to his ankles. 

Kicking them off, next to his previously discarded tank top, he was now completely naked in his Aunt's garden. Fuck, he was so hard it hurt. Getting to his knees, he took hold of his dick once again, and began to frantically jerk it, and with his other hand, he reached up and twisted one of his nipples. Every painful twist and pinch just brought another rush cascading and eddying through his body, and centring in his balls. 

After only a couple of minutes, the sheer euphoric risk of being exposed got the better of him, and his knees started to tremble. He planted his left hand on the warm grass to steady himself, and felt the inexorable tension begin to build, from his fingertips, right through his spine, and all the way down to his groin. The torrent of sensation growing overwhelming, he let go of his penis, watched it twitch uncontrollably in the warm sunshine, and closed his eyes as it finally... erupted. 

His orgasm felt like it went on for hours, and by the time his cock had stopped pulsing, he'd slumped back on his haunches, resting his weight on his unsteady hands. Panting, he finally opened his eyes, to realise that he'd absolutely drenched the rose bush. And the one behind it. And half the way up the fence behind that, for that matter. 

Eventually coming down from his high, he wiped the cum off his hand on the grass next to him, and turned around to pick up his clothes. However, with the buzzing still coursing through his veins, he couldn't bring himself to care about the risk, and instead threw them to one side. The sun felt amazing on his bare skin, after all, and his Aunt wasn't due back until the afternoon - some sort of community church choir she'd started going to, because it was the sort of thing that she thought an upstanding member of the community should be doing. 

He finished watering down the garden, spraying himself with the water to cool himself down. By the time he'd finished watering the garden, thanks to teenage hormones, he was back at full-mast - but rather than taking matters in hand once again, he focused on washing down the fence and the roses that he'd defiled, and decided to grab himself an early lunch. 

Scooping up his clothes as he walked back towards the house, he froze as he saw a flash of movement from inside the windows. 

Harry swore internally, frantically scrambling into his clothes. The buzzing, carefree sensation died _extremely_ quickly at the thought of being seen with his kit off by his aunt. 

As he stepped inside, Petunia was sat at the dinner table, a coffee in hand, a open magazine in front of her. 

She looked up and met his eyes. Suddenly, without warning, she slammed a hand on the table, pinning him to the wall with a furious gaze. Harry actually flinched and took a step backwards. 

"Do you have any idea how livid I am?" she hissed, murder in her eyes. 

Harry's heart dropped, through his chest, down his legs, and right into the soles of his feet. Metaphorically, of course. Just like he very-much-not-metaphorically wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. 

How the hell can he talk himself out of this one - she looked at him like she was considering slicing him in two with a breadknife. Dead _dead_ **dead**. He was doomed. 

"The organist was ill, and nobody had bothered to tell us. I sat there for fifteen minutes, just me and that old bat from the supermarket! I've had to accept an invitation to one of her _awful_ dinner parties!" His aunt snapped. 

Harry let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. Oh. She was just complaining about her missed choir practice and ruined morning. Of course. Christ, the woman was desperately in need of some perspective. 

Sometimes, he wondered how he could be related to people who were this oblivious - she'd been sat next to the garden window literally all morning, and the moron clearly hadn't looked out of the window once. Still, he'd slowly began to realise over the past couple of years - his relatives didn't actually hate him, particularly. They hated everyone - which made it all the weirder how obsessed they were with their reputation in the community. Somehow realising that made him hate them a lot less - although he didn't think he'd ever actually like them.

Either way, if she'd been cornered like that, his aunt wouldn't be able to turn down an invitation to one of those dreaded candlelit suppers she'd been trying to avoid for weeks. Meanwhile, his aunt seemed to run out of steam at his completely nonplussed expression.

"You're soaking wet. Is that sweat?" She flapped a hand at him, burying her nose back in her copy of Woman's Weekly. "You're disgusting. Get upstairs, the loft needs cleaning out. And then have a shower, I don't want you getting sweat on anything important, you disgusting boy." 

Harry certainly wasn't waiting for her to ask twice, and scuttled upstairs before she even finished speaking.   
  
Flopping down on his bed, as the adrenaline from his outdoor escapades plus the fear of almost being caught finally started to drain away, Harry tried - and failed - to stifle a giggle. This escalated into full-blown laughter, and he pressed his face into the pillow to try to muffle the sound, lest his Aunt think he's finally gone completely insane. 

Finally getting himself mostly back under control, he got up and went to the bathroom to splash a bit of water on his face in the hope of keeping the giggles under control, and after a a quick drink from the cold tap, made his way up into the loft.

\---

A couple of hours of heavy lifting later, and Harry was almost done in the loft. He'd sorted through all of the boxes of old Christmas decorations, and all of Dudley's broken and/or abandoned toys were packed up (having formerly resided in Harry's current bedroom). He'd had no idea why they were being kept, given that Dudley didn't even remember they were there. Harry had actually grabbed a couple of Transformers toys and a Power Ranger that seemed to be relatively intact - Mr Weasley would get a kick out of them, he'd ask Hedwig to take them over next time he wrote to the Weasleys.

Thinking of the Weasleys, though, made him think of Ron - and that soured his mood slightly. Ron had apologised for how he'd acted the past year, but honestly, his first friend had a temperament as fiery as his hair, and a jealous streak that outperformed even that; one of these days they were going to have a falling-out that he suspected would be permanent. 

He sighed and got back to sweeping up the dust bunnies that had gathered everywhere. He was just trying to get his broom into the far corner at the back, when he noticed a small embossed tin tucked behind one of the rafters. Crawling into the tight gap underneath the exposed wooden beams, he managed to grab hold of it with his fingertips and pulled it into the light. Brushing some of the dust off, he realised it was an old-fashioned copper-coloured tea caddy, with 'Yorkshire Tea' written on the lid. It didn't look like it'd been moved for at least a decade.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Harry tried to open it, although it wouldn't really budge from lack of use. Eventually, he finally managed to rip it open, almost losing a fingernail in the process, and nearly dropped it when some of the tightly-packed contents spilled out onto the wooden-boarded floor.

He got back onto his knees and started picking up the photos, scraps of paper, and suchlike, but got distracted by one of the photographs. It was in colour, but looked dated.

A smartly-dressed middle-aged couple grinned at the camera, the man with a touch of silver at the temples and a spectacular moustache, the woman a little younger, with laughter lines around her eyes and bright red lipstick that matched her flame-red hair. Their hands were on the shoulders of two little girls, one dark-blonde, the other one with a head of fiery red hair, in matching summer dresses - the girls looked maybe eight or nine years old, at Harry's best guess? In the background was a typical 1960s family car (maybe an Austin? Or an old Vauxhall? Harry couldn't tell for sure) in an absolutely sickly shade of mint-green, parked near a field, and it looked like a typical family holiday photo. The girls were looking at each-other with a cheeky smirk, as if they were planning all sorts of trouble - Harry smiled at the thought.

He put down the photo and picked up another. This time, the same two girls building a sand castle on the beach, with a big striped umbrella in the background as sun protection. This was in black and white, and girls looked a bit younger. The mum and dad weren't in shot, so Harry assumed one of them was probably taking the photo. A few more photos followed - the girls smirking at the camera, then running into the sea, then wrapped in a big towel together, each clutching an ice-cream cone. 

Harry put the photos down, and rummaged through the rest of the contents, pulling out a small birthday card - it looked handmade, with a little picture of a teddy bear and some ribbon tied to it. He opened it, and immediately closed it again, as the penny dropped. He took a deep breath, and opened it again. In a childish scrawl, was written;

_'Dear Tuney_

_Happy Birthday to the best sister in the world!_

_Love_  
_Lils_  
_xxx'_

\---

Harry had no idea how long he'd stared at that card for. It could have been thirty seconds, it could have been ten minutes. It had never occurred to him but he'd never seen his mother's handwriting before - even this, which looked like the handwriting of a small child. He realised that the photos were of his mother and his aunt, and the two adults were his maternal grandparents - who his aunt had never so much as mentioned, so he guessed they must be long-gone by now.

A drop of liquid splashed onto the bottom of the card, which Harry realised was from him - he was crying. Gently wiping it away with the hem of his shirt and pushing his tears away with the back of his hand, he reverently put the card back in the pile and went back to rummaging through the photos. God, they all looked so happy. Like, the girl he now realised was his aunt - he recognised bits of her face, but she looked so carefree, so unworn, so young. They looked like the closest sisters in the world - what the hell had gone wrong?

He continued to flick through the photos which were in no particular order. Not every picture had the parents in, but every photo had both girls in, and all of them depicted a happy family - the girls in matching sleeping bags in a tent, the girls dancing together, dressed in matching halloween costumes - Harry snorted, they were both dressed as witches - and the girls ripping open their Christmas presents. None of the pictures seemed to reach teenage years, though - it looked like it covered up until secondary school.

'Right up until Hogwarts.' Harry sighed to himself. 

Harry was flicking through the rest of the photos, when a small envelope slid out from a handful of them and onto the floor. The paper was yellowing and a little crinkled in the corners, but otherwise untouched. Picking it up, he noticed that the handwriting was much more formal, and definitely not written by a child's hand. In fact - Harry lifted it up closer to his eyes to check - it had definitely been written with a quill, not a normal pen. After four years of Hogwarts, he could spot the tell-tale signs. It felt a bit thick, like it had more than just paper in there. 

It was addressed to _'Ms P Evans, 178 Zephaniah Terrace, Cokeworth, WV18 8PP'_

Flipping it over, Harry noted that it was still sealed. He took a deep breath, and agonised over whether to open it up and read it - it was clearly a private letter to his aunt, that wasn't any of his business, but equally clearly, it was a letter written by his adult mother. He couldn't resist the opportunity to own something that his mother had touched. Somehow it felt more real than photos and stories of her, because this was real - this was something he could touch, knowing that she'd touched it too. Instead of breaking the seal, he just sat there and gently caressed the ink with his thumb, just soaking in the knowledge that he was holding something from his mother - never mind that it wasn't addressed to him. It counted. 

"BOY!" a shriek brought him back down from his reverie. "Vernon and Dudders are on their way back, so dinner had better be on the table in forty-five minutes!"

Hurriedly stuffing the photos back into the tin, he pushed it back into its corner so it wouldn't be seen. However, he slipped the small envelope into his pocket, not wanting to part with that. He scrambled back down the ladder, hid the envelope under his loose floorboard, and after a quick shower, busied himself in the kitchen. 

The advantage to days when he was being the family cook is that so long as none of his relatives were paying attention (which was all the time), he could eat enough of the food while he cooked it that being sent upstairs with some dry bread wasn't such a hardship. Ever since Sirius had broken out, they'd made a point of ignoring him, and he'd done likewise. He plated the food as Vernon and Dudley walked through the door, put it on the table without a word to either of them, and went straight upstairs with a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. 

Finally back in his room, he climbed onto his bed with a couple of books, planning on finally getting started on his summer homework. However, his mind kept drifting back to that envelope tucked under the loose floorboard, and after an hour or two of reading the same page in _Transfiguration Today - The Theory of Animal Transformation_ , he gave in and got the letter back out. Somehow, he still couldn't bring himself to open it, and just sat there staring at his mother's handwriting with eyes full of unshed tears, until his eyelids fluttered closed against his will, and he drifted off to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go. A section of Harry being a horny little exhibitionist pain-slut, followed by some slightly heavy emotional stuff. Either way, fetch the Kleenex!  
> I hope you've all enjoyed this, and if so, bookmark it, leave comments and kudos, and if there's anything you've always wanted to see in a fic like this, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
> 
> There's probably a lot of UK-centric writing in here - if there's anything that doesn't make sense, drop a comment and I'll clear it up.
> 
> That Yorkshire Tea caddy? Every British family has one somewhere. I certainly did - it's probably in mum's loft somewhere, like Harry's was. Most people fill them with old photos, sewing equipment, toy soldiers, or if they're absolutely desperate, tea bags. The one I was talking about looks like this: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/703898616731886057/
> 
> Also I'm not sure how well the word loft translates outside of the UK. Over here, a loft is typically just a storage space directly underneath the roof beams, which you access through a ladder and a hatch. You can convert them into an extra bedroom if you have the cash, but more often people just put wooden boards in for flooring and use them as a junk room.
> 
> Any kind of update schedule is probably going to very erratic - I write when I'm in that mood, and sometimes that's at 2am. Also, I don't write this in order - I tend to come up with interesting scenes while I'm in bed, or in the shower, or washing up - when I get to my computer, I'll write them out and then worry about how I'll fit them together later. Think of it like Lego.


	3. The Graveyard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hit 100 kudos and over 3000 hits, which feels absolutely great for only being a couple of chapters in so far. Please keep it up! 
> 
> As a reward for taking me over 100 kudos, I wanted to push to get this chapter out tonight. This one is longer than the first two - I don't know if I'll keep that up or go back to ~3000 per chapter in future. 
> 
> There's more notes at the end - for now, please read, enjoy, and leave me kudos and comments at the end. Thanks!

_Harry thrashed about on the grass of the now-familiar graveyard, locked in a desperate struggle to escape. He was nude - his clothes long-since vanished, by the older man pinning him to the ground. His eyes were tight shut, his jaw clenched, and his mouth in a thin line as he tried in vain to prevent what was happening to him. A slim, delicate, yet deceptively strong and firm hand gripped around his throat and gently squeezed, slowly cutting off the airflow. A sibilant hiss of Parseltongue flowed from the man's lips._

_"Open your eyes, Harry..."_

_The energy drained from his muscles, and a blissful feeling of serenity suffused through him. As he opened his bright green eyes, the man's youthful, handsome face was staring back at him. Voldemort's deep crimson eyes locked onto his own, and he was lost._

_All sense of time fell away, and although the older Parselmouth continued to speak, he couldn't comprehend any of the words - instead he could feel it, crashing over him like waves, dragging him under - he couldn't bring himself to fight it, instead he fell deeper and deeper into those swirling blood-red pools, and he didn't even notice his body falling back as though it was controlled by someone else. He settled back into the grass, all fight gone from him. His prick, limp and unresponsive to this point, began to swell with blood, and before long was completely firm, pointed up towards his belly button._

_Voldemort lifted his ankles higher, resting them on his shoulders, and Harry felt a firm, slick pressure against his hole. Blissfully accepting the inevitable, he raised his hips to ease the Dark Lord's access, and felt the intrusion as the man entered him. God, it was huge, he couldn't do this, he felt like he was going to break apart... but then those strange waves of serenity returned, making him relax and accept the intrusion._

_Slowly, inexorably, the man pushed deeper inside him, and it was starting to feel strange rather than painful. He still felt like he was at breaking point. Throughout the penetration, Harry's eyes never left Voldemort's. Eventually, the man's hips met his backside, and Harry flushed with pride that he'd taken the whole of the man's impressive erection._

_The Dark Lord allowed him a few moments to adjust, but once he'd began to acclimatise to the discomfort, the man drew his full length out, and slammed back in in a single thrust, setting an aggressive and dominating pace. Time meant nothing in this place - as if this was his sole purpose from hereafter; to be just a vessel for this man. Slowly, the strangeness, the fullness, the pain, all began to soften - not to disappear completely, but just to fade into the background._

_With each time Voldemort hammered at Harry's prostate, sparks began to tingle down his spine, centring on the boy's much shorter and thinner penis, which twitched violently with every stroke, a string of clear fluid dripping from the tip onto his smooth groin, and running in a thin stream down his hip onto the ground. Despite this surging pleasure, somehow he knew that he would not be able to reach completion until his Lord permitted it._

_Eventually, the man stilled his thrusts, and as he did so he bit down, possessively, into the younger boy's neck, finally breaking the eye-contact between them. Harry's heart pounded, as he felt the man release deep inside him._

_When Voldemort pulled his softening cock from Harry's body, the boy couldn't help himself but to slump bonelessly onto the grass and his eyes slid closed, a blissful post-coital smile on his face. However, after a few moments, he realised there was one more thing he wanted to do, and he hauled himself up into a kneeling position. Lord Voldemort stood before him, and Harry couldn't help but to gaze adoringly at the magnificent man. He craved to belong to him - and he would get his wish._

_He offered his left arm to the man, palm upwards, and his Lord smiled knowingly down at him. Gently taking the boy's hand, he pulled out his wand and pressed it to the skin between his wrist and elbow._

_Voldemort treated the word like a whisper in a lover's ear - his hisses were like music, caressing the air between them, and sending shivers down Harry's spine._

_"Morsmordre."_

_White-hot pain flared in his arm, a shock of sheer fire that he felt right down to his bones, and it was all he could do not to cry out. And yet, somehow, the pain settled into his soul, anchoring itself there like an old friend, and the pleasure and joy that it gave him almost brought tears to his eyes. He looked down at his arm, and stared as the Dark Mark was born onto his skin, like a living creature becoming a part of him. As it settled on his arm, he could feel it in his soul, a part of him now and forever._

_He looked up and met his Lord's eyes once more, and the love and pride that he saw sparkling down at him made his heart flutter. Somehow his body recognised the unspoken approval for what it was, and he was caught off guard by a feeling which surged through his body like a tsunami. Still, he didn't allow his eyes to break contact with his Master's, as he finally reached his orgasm completely untouched, shooting four or five good pulses across the grass of Voldemort's father's grave._

\---

Harry slowly came back to wakefulness as the sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, and he snuggled back into his duvet determined to ignore the world for a few moments longer. 

His eyes suddenly shot open, however, as memories began to rush in, and in a blind panic he tugged his arm out from under the blankets, inspecting it. Of course, it was pale and unmarked. When he closed his eyes, however, he swore he could still feel it there, throbbing just underneath the skin. 

He settled back into the pillow, and, not even noticing the slick dampness in the front of his briefs, fell into a light doze.

\---

Harry swung idly back and forth on the one unbroken swing in this kid's playpark late that same evening. He had no idea how long he'd sat out here. It must have been a few hours at least, though. He was a few miles away from Privet Drive, and the sun had long-since set over Surrey. It was late, well-past 9pm, but the time had long-since past when being out after dark would fill him with anxiety. He usually took his invisibility cloak in a small canvas shoulder bag though, along with his wand, just in case.

The past few days had been mostly uneventful, and surprisingly pleasant - Dursleys aside. Up until this morning, the nights since he'd found the letter had been peaceful and entirely dreamless, and although a part of Harry had quite enjoyed the dreams at the time, they filled him with conflicting emotions and anxieties he really didn't want to consider too deeply at the moment. 

Over a week had passed, yet still he'd been unable to bring himself to open the envelope. After a couple of days, he'd put it back under the loose floorboard, so gently as to be reverential, because every time he looked at it, a shock of anxiety dropped through his stomach. He wasn't sure if he was more scared that it wasn't from his mother, or the idea that it _was_. Petunia had never opened it; so either way, whatever words were written on the letter had gone unsaid.

In the meantime, he'd distracted himself by making good use of the owl-order catalogue from Flourish and Blotts, which had been a pleasant surprise in its simplicity - press your wand to the item you wanted, murmur a quiet charm to validate your identity, and an order form would automatically be filled in at both the bookstore and Gringotts. The item would be sent with the next available owl - usually arriving a couple of hours later, regardless of the time of day or night. 

The real bonus was when he noticed an addendum underneath those instructions, explaining that due to the minimal power requirements of the verification spell, it could not be detected by the Ministry trace on underage wizards, and was therefore exempt.

Naturally, his first two purchases were on books about spell-power, and after some research, he was intrigued to learn that some basic charms used so little power as to be undetectable. He also was delighted to learn that these basic charms included the one required to activate simple runic-chains, which used no active power at all once they'd been activated, instead drawing their power from the latent magic in the ground rather than from the wizard. 

Now he thought about it, it was pretty obvious that runes didn't show as active spells. Dumbledore had assured him that his aunt and uncle's property was warded, and nobody from the Ministry seemed to be any the wiser about magic being used in the area. Following the Dobby Incident of a few years ago, he knew the trace didn't only capture magic by him, but any magic cast in his vicinity.

Because of this, he'd immediately dropped the transfiguration homework he had been finessing, and focused instead on trying to catch up with two year's worth of missed studies of Arithmancy and Ancient Runes - maybe if he asked McGonagall, he could switch his electives next year? He'd missed a couple of years, but with everything going on with the Triwizard Tournament last year, it's not like he'd been that focused on his studies even in the subjects he was taking. 

He now owned a selection of books on Ancient Runes from multiple cultures, including but not limited to Sumerian, Sanskrit, and Ogham, and a couple on basic Arithmancy. Surprisingly, once some basic magical theory principles had been accounted for, Arithmancy wasn't much harder than the mathematics lessons he'd had in primary school, and the majority of basic rune-work was just copying from the book.

Putting his research into practice, he'd already managed to figure out a couple of the more simple rune-chains - as a test, he'd warded one of Dudley's old toys against physical damage, and then spent a _very_ creative half an hour with one of his uncle's hacksaws (which had snapped rather than cut through the plastic), a brick (which shattered on impact), and a hammer (which bent). After this rigorous testing, he accepted that his experiment had been a success.

It had occurred to him this summer that when he was focused on actually studying, and not on the constant threat of violence and death that had overshadowed the majority of his Hogwarts education, magic was _easy_. Like, _really_ easy. It didn't hurt that at the Dursleys, the only three pastimes available to Harry were household chores, reading, and dodging punches from Dudley. Added to that, Harry could be extremely single minded when he had a project in mind, and right now it was to learn every last scrap of magic he could get away with at the Dursleys without alerting the whole Merlin-be-damned government.

A wristwatch that he'd found when he'd tidied the loft out had given him a first opportunity to get some use from what he'd been learning. He vaguely recalled that Dudley had been given it as a present some years ago by his Aunt Marge, and as it had never fitted around his colossal wrists, it had been shoved in a box and forgotten about. It wasn't particularly expensive, just an Argos brand, but it suited Harry just fine. He'd done a couple of simple calculations to get the area-of-effect and the power levels correct, and then engraved a couple of simple Nordic symbols on the underside with an old potions scalpel. It wasn't quite as sophisticated as a proper ritual knife, but would do in a pinch. 

He'd read a story in one of his books about how, centuries ago, similar runes had been engraved on the prow of Viking longboats to prevent the Anglo-Saxons from noticing the incoming invaders. It was a good way guaranteeing that the locals would be completely unprepared for invasion and inevitably caught with their pants down, so to speak. It also ensured the boats wouldn't be burned in retaliatory attacks, while the warriors were ashore. The runes don't work by turning anything invisible - they just encourage the untrained eye to skip past the subject of the enchantment.

Harry was really just using it to avoid his relatives, and it had been pretty effective so far. So long as he didn't touch them, or announce himself, they just acted as if he wasn't there - which was absolutely perfect for him. 

He'd kept the watch on pretty-much twenty-four-seven since then, even while he was sleeping, and had noticed people's eyes just completely not acknowledging him. A couple of people had walked into him while he was out and about, and were very apologetic about it, and then forgot who they were talking to as soon as they took their eyes off him. It worked best on non-magical people - he suspected something similar had been engraved somewhere on the Leaky Cauldron - it would explain a lot. 

Harry was finding that he wasn't struggling to get enough to eat anymore, either - nowadays he could walk into his local supermarket, fill his backpack with supplies, and walk straight back out without any reaction from anyone. He was careful to avoid CCTV cameras - the Norse wizards definitely wouldn't have accounted for video recording technology in their calculations - but so long as he didn't touch anyone or move anything too big, nobody paid him the faintest amount of attention. 

He was pretty much living off pre-made sandwiches and sweets, which wasn't the healthiest option, but given he could still count his ribs after four years of solid Hogwarts meals, he figured it probably wouldn't kill him to treat himself for a few days. Besides, muggle candy was infinitely better than the wizarding equivalent. Whoever decided that blood-flavoured lollipops were a good idea, or that earwax and snot should be jellybean flavours, needed some education on what sweets were supposed to be made of. Or just beating over the head with a broomstick. 

Speaking of food, Harry's stomach rumbled. He'd been wandering around for quite a few hours today. Rummaging around in his shoulder bag for a Mars Bar, he ripped open the packaging and absent-mindedly swung his legs back and forth as he bit into the chocolate bar.

The peaceful and productive routine of the last week - wake up, chores, shower, study, exercise, bed - had been slightly disrupted by the dream this morning. While this one was still in the graveyard, however, it felt different somehow, and not just because it was seen through his eyes, rather than the other's. 

One thing that had been troubling him was the fact that although the overriding emotion at finding his arm unmarked after he woke up was relief, it couldn't entirely mask the fact that he also felt a tiny bit of disappointment, which he really didn't want to think about too much. The euphoria when the mark was branded onto his skin was intoxicating. 

The other fact that was troubling him was how the dream had felt - in exactly the sense that it was a dream, and it felt like one. He knew that when he woke, he remembered it in full, but throughout the day the more he reached for it, the more it faded from his grasp, as if he was trying to hold water in his hands. 

In contrast, the dreams beforehand... those memories remained crystal-clear even a week later. They felt like something he had truly experienced, not like something dragged up form his subconscious. Given that this morning had proven his own subconscious perfectly capable of inventing something equally as troubling, this offered little comfort. However, the dreams from last week felt alien - like he hadn't belonged there.

Finishing his chocolate bar and stuffing the wrapper back into his shoulder bag, he idly thought back to the events at the end of his fourth year, and what really happened in that graveyard.

\---  
**Flashback** :

Harry swore as he limped furiously around what was left of the maze - fire from the blast-ended skrewts had razed some of the hedge walls, others had been crushed by creatures he didn't even want to think about. He'd already told a Runespoor to fuck off in its own language, and the poor thing was so surprised it actually did.

Honestly, there had been some stupid things at Hogwarts in the last few years, but this topped them all and then some. After all of the talk about the high deathcount, and how they'd gone to extreme lengths to make it safe this time, the tasks involved stealing from a nesting dragon, tying up innocent children and leaving them at the bottom of a lake to drown - _Gabrielle was only eight years old, how was that legal!_ \- and then finally finished it off with this - a bloody hedge maze, but instead of some ridiculous high-tea village-fete fun and games, they'd filled the damn thing full of potentially-fatal traps, curses, and exactly the sort of wildlife that's designed to make you very dead very quickly. 

Not to mention that nobody had bothered to set up any surveillance; so in the extremely likely event that someone had suffered potentially fatal injuries - unless they were found by another competitor - they were basically dead. The staff wouldn't even start looking for them until one competitor had come out of the maze with the trophy.

The only thing madder than the sheer stupidity involved in this whole competition was the fact that anyone wanted to participate at all - he suspected Cedric, Viktor, and Fleur were all wondering what had possessed them to enter in the first place by now. None of them were even supposed to know what the first task was; they all found out due to people cheating on their behalf - except Cedric, who only found out when Harry told him.

It was a damn good thing he had, too; in the Champion's tent, Cedric had later told Harry that he'd been frantically practicing the spell he used to distract the dragon for several days leading up to it. If Harry hadn't done that, Cedric would have been toast - _quite literally_ incinerated before you could say 'Fudge-is-a-moron'. And wouldn't that be a great start to the tournament? 

Harry muttered theatrically to himself as he stomped through the course. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first task of the Triwizard tournament! In this act, we shall be feeding four live teenagers to a pissed off dragon. Isn't that a riot! And no, they didn't know, and if they try to pull out now, there will be unspecified consequences..."

Harry continued to grumble and swear bloody murder at everyone involved in planning this stupid endeavour, as he trudged further into the maze, trying and failing to ignore his badly twisted ankle. 

It all got a bit too much, when, having spent ten minutes traversing a particular path, he was met with yet another dead-end. His frustration boiling over, Harry screamed a mix of a blasting curse with so much bad language that the hedge didn't so much blast open so much as it fled in fear. The spell to force the hedge to regrow appeared to have retreated too, so marvelling at his first bit of decent fortune in this stupid maze, he scrambled through the hole. In doing so, he ripped his robes even more and cut another groove into his scalp with an errant branch - by this point, he hardly noticed.

If they wanted to 'encourage international cooperation', couldn't they have just scheduled a damn quidditch tournament? It'd be safer, more people would get to participate, and it'd be a far better spectator sport. For Merlin's sake, they put up a whole set of spectator stands just so people could stare at a damn lake for an hour, and now they've all come to look at the outside of a hedge maze for an hour. Thrilling. He imagined Lee Jordan was having fun commentating.

The only point in which this had encouraged magical cooperation is the point when Harry had had to rescue Fleur from some sort of massive leopard thing - a Nundu, he vaguely remembered from Prof Lupin's lessons last year - but having taken faceful of its foul toxic breath, she was completely out-cold. He'd cast a stasis spell, technically from the fifth year curriculum and normally used for food preservation, but which would keep her vitals stable for now, and sent up red sparks to request assistance. 

Madam Pomfrey had taken him to one side a couple of weeks earlier and made him practice that spell until his wrist ached, so he suspected she had some idea of what he was going to be facing. Nice to know there was at least one adult in the whole damn school who was trying to lower the death count.

As he came out the other side of the hedge, he gawped for a second at the sight in front of him - Cedric Diggory was slumped on the ground, one leg bent quite badly to the side, definitely broken, but the teen himself was conscious, albeit pale, and trying to prop himself up on his arm. 

"Fuck. Shit. Are you okay Cedric?" Harry asked, scrambling over and dropping to his knees next to the prone teenager.

Cedric was breathing deeply, but he still seemed like his head was functioning. "Harry, it was him, Viktor..." he gestured weakly with his free arm, and Harry only just noticed Krum slumped in the corner on the other side of this clearing. "I didn't see him come around the corner, and then he did this to my leg and then I think he was about to cast the Cruciatus.. until the hedge exploded right next to him. Was that you? How in the hell did you blast through that? They've been growing back every time I tried."

Harry flushed a bit. "Er, I swore at it. I got kinda mad."

The handsome older teen chuckled weakly. "Remind me not to get on your bad side." He tried to prop himself up a bit more with his right hand, but fell back with a groan of pain. Harry quickly caught him and gently helped him get comfortable, casting a numbing charm on the broken leg in the process.

"Send up red sparks - I'm sorry mate, but that leg looks _bad_. There's no way in hell you can stand up. I don't think Viktor is going any further, either, and Fleur's already out."

Cedric nodded, already resigned to not completing the task. "Mate, I can't believe Krum... I thought he was one of the good ones." Harry moved over to where Viktor was lying unconscious, checking his vitals. Satisfied that Viktor was just unconscious, he cast the same spell on him as he had on Fleur, along with some bindings in case he woke up. 

"Honestly, Ced, I don't believe any of what's going on at the moment. There's something utterly fucking messed up about this whole tournament. Just let me grab the trophy and we can forget this whole sorry thing every happened. You gonna be alright here?" he asked, clasping the older boy's shoulder.

The Hufflepuff champion nodded, and sent up red sparks with his wand in his spare hand. As Harry turned to leave, Cedric grabbed his elbow and turned him back to face him. 

"Harry, mate... just want to say I'm proud as hell of you. Stay safe, yeah?" 

Harry offered the older boy a genuine smile. "I'll try. Team Hogwarts?" He replied, offering his outstretched fist. The other boy bumped his fist against it.

"Team Hogwarts." he agreed.

Harry spun and darted off into the maze. Viktor and Cedric were actually pretty close to the finish- a couple more twists and turns and he saw it, looking fairly incongruous to its surroundings; perched on a faux-marble plinth in the middle of a small opening in the maze, was a silver cup. It reminded Harry of a football trophy he'd seen on TV once or twice, with ribbons hanging from both handles.

Looking around and not seeing any traps or tricks, he shrugged and grabbed the trophy with his left hand. What he didn't expect was the hooking sensation, as he was yanked backwards and the world around him blurred.

\---

As the portkey deposited him ungracefully in a heap on the floor, his wand and the trophy rolling into the unkempt grass, Harry cursed his own lack of caution. A fake trophy perhaps - to catch out the unwary. Harry snorted - in other words, him. Either that, or this was some sort of final challenge for the winner?

Either way, he had figure out where he was, and get himself out of whatever mess he was in. It was jet black around him, but scanning around, he was definitely still outdoors, and he realised he was in a cemetery of some sort. As he leaned down to pick up the trophy and his wand, which had rolled up against a chipped and weather-beaten old headstone, he glanced at the name written upon it - and froze. 

**_Thomas Stanley Riddle_ **  
**_1905-1943_ **  
**_Son of Thomas and Mary_ **  
**_May he rest in peace_ **

Harry didn't even notice the stunning curse. 

\---

Harry groggily blinked his eyes open and tried to stand up - only to realise his hands were tightly bound behind his back - to the very headstone he'd been staring at - and no amount of struggle seemed to offer any escape.

"Hello?" he called out, feeling stupid, but not knowing what else to do. The trophy was just out of his reach, but his wand was nowhere to be seen.

He could see a rather short and squat man hunched over a pile of sticks, and with a quick 'Incendio', the whole thing went up in flames.

Nodding at his work, the man straightened up, holding what Harry realised was his own wand. He turned to the bound boy.

"Hello, Harry." said Wormtail.

Harry saw red. His struggles redoubled, a string of curses fell from his lips, blending into one another, but with his hands bound and his wand out of reach, he could do nothing except try to project his magic at the man - which, while slightly effective, wasn't enough to do anything other than make him stumble backwards slightly, meanwhile completely exhausting Harry himself.

The traitor smiled. "I'm impressed, Harry. Your parents were strong - you're even stronger. James and Lily would be proud of the man you've become."

"How dare you. How **dare** you speak their names! You don't deserve to speak their names!" Harry snarled, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached.

Peter Pettigrew smiled ruefully. "I guess I deserve that. You know, I didn't mean for any of this to happen - I wanted to protect them. And you. Prongs was my brother in all but name, and I was gonna be your Uncle Pete. I was looking forward to it, but then I tried to be clever." He shrugged. "Pretty fine mess I made of it all."

Harry's head spun, and his mouth hung open, struggling to find the words. "You... what?" 

"Sorry kid. If I could, I'd love to sit the two of us down and explain exactly what happened back then - but we don't have the time. It won't be long before you're missed, and Barty can only hold them off for so long." 

He twirled Harry's wand, and a rip in the ground next to him opened up. A single bone rose from it, and sailed through the air into the fire that Pettigrew had just lit. The man then conjured a small pewter goblet, which he pressed against a cut on Harry's arm that he hadn't even noticed until then, dribbling some blood sluggishly into the bottom. Harry was so shellshocked he didn't even protest.

He dropped the goblet into the fire alongside the bone, and then knelt beside it. The fireglow lit his face from beneath, casting shadows and showing the deep bags beneath the man's eyes. 

"If you make it out of here, tell Moony and Pads I'm sorry as hell for being a jackass - I don't imagine they'll want to hear it, but I want them to know anyway. The world is a lot more complicated than it appears, but you're a smart kid - you'll figure it out. Just remember, no matter what, you've always got a choice."

The man tossed Harry's wand to one side, and turned away from Harry, and spoke into the flames. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son." 

The fire flared up noticeably higher, and the bone disappeared into ash. 

"Blood of the conqueror, forcibly taken, you will restore your foe." 

The fire burned white-hot, now at head-height, and the goblet faded from existence at the heart of the inferno.

Pettigrew steeled himself, and said "Life of the servant, willingly given. You will revive your master."

Wormtail glanced at Harry one last time. "See you later, kid." The boy watched on in wordless horror as Peter Pettigrew stepped into the flames, and just... disintegrated. 

The pyre burned so bright that Harry had to avert his eyes, and when it finally calmed down, he still had bright spots on his eyes. Blinking them away, he looked up, and the fire had calmed back down, with no remains of Pettigrew or any of the other elements of the ritual.

There was, however, a lithe dark-haired man, slumped nude in the grass beside the fire. The man stirred and slowly climbed to his hands and knees, facing away from Harry. He bent backwards, stretching his arms into the air, his joints audibly clicking as if the man had just woken from a long sleep. 

He snatched Harry's wand up from the grass beside him, conjuring a simple robe onto himself, and using one of the gravestones for stability, he clambered to his feet. Pale, tired-looking, but unmistakeably alive and whole, was Tom Riddle - Lord Voldemort. 

He sighed, and knelt down to the flames to extinguish them. He bowed his head, running a pale hand through his jet-black hair. 

"I'm sorry, Peter." he muttered under his breath. "You deserved better than that."

Harry whimpered. Voldemort's head snapped in his direction, and he straightened up, gliding gracefully towards Harry, who struggled desperately to get away. Against all of his attempts, Lord Voldemort grabbed Harry by the chin and forced him to face him.

"Hello, my little nemesis." Tom spoke, with the same deep, rich, aristocratic voice that had sent shivers down his spine when spoken by the sixteen-year-old version of himself in the Chamber of Secrets. "It's been a while. You've grown."

Harry spat back "So've you."

Letting go of Harry's chin, Voldemort laughed openly. "You may have a point there, _little snake_ ," switching into Parseltongue for the last two words. "How could I forget that you'd met my sixteen-year-old self."

The sound of Tom Riddle's laugh set something off in Harry - for some reason it tingled all down his spine, and he suddenly realised just how exhausted he was, slumping weakly against the gravestone. Meanwhile, the man did a complicated whirl with Harry's wand, and suddenly soaring through the air came an almost identical wand, landing in Voldemort's hand with a smack.

Regardless of Harry's thoughts on the man, his use of magic was something to behold. He wore his power with a confidence and swagger like nobody else, and it actually blurred and swirled in the air around him. It lit up his handsome face, and when the man cast, his normally dark reddish-brown eyes lit up in pure crimson. Harry found himself just marvelling at the man - it was magnificent, and _addictive_ \- he was enthralled.

Turning his attention back to Harry, the man knelt down next to him, and reached out, running a hand gently along the boy's delicate cheekbones. He leaned in, his lips feathering against Harry's temple - and the boy couldn't find it in himself to resist.

"Hallowe'en 1981 was an error that I don't intend to repeat." he breathed. He tilted the boy's face towards his own, and Harry gasped as the handsome man pressed a gentle, slow kiss to the boy's lips. As they broke away, Harry just stared at the man, unable to form words.

As the man straightened up, the boy noticed that Voldemort had left him his wand on his lap.

Tom Riddle tilted his head slightly, and just looked at Harry for a long few seconds. Finally, he spoke, slowly and reluctantly. "To go back, touch the trophy and say 'Portus'. If you should ever need to find me, follow this." The Dark Lord leaned down and traced a gentle finger over the scar on the boy's forehead. "It knows where to go."

He stepped back.

"Goodbye, Harry James Potter."

And as Harry blinked, Tom Riddle disappeared noiselessly from view, along with Harry's bindings, and all of the residual debris from the ritual. Harry sat there for a couple of minutes, trying to contemplate what the _fuck_ had just gone on, but realising he should probably get back as soon as possible, he dragged himself up onto shaky legs, using the gravestone of the man it appeared was Voldemort's father as leverage - he absently noted that the grave plot had also been repaired, as if the split in the turf had never happened. 

He grabbed his wand and the trophy, and in a voice that he tried to convince himself was steady, spoke the word as Voldemort instructed, and felt the hooking sensation behind his navel as the portkey dragged him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was fun! It's hella long, but there was a lot of content I wanted to include. I was going to have a bit about the post-graveyard aftermath, and how it differs from the books, but I'll save that for the moment. 
> 
> I don't think Tom Riddle's dad has a middle name in canon, but I wanted to distinguish him from Voldemort. Quite often he gets called Tom Riddle Sr, but his dad (Voldemort's grandfather) was also Tom Riddle, so I figured the whole Jr vs Sr thing would just get confusing. So, I just picked a common British early-1900s name, and Stanley seemed about the right vintage. 
> 
> I always thought Wormtail deserved slightly better characterisation than he ever got in the books - or indeed in most fanfiction. Surely he must have had some decent character traits after seven years as a marauder. He just felt like a convenient plot device, especially being a 'rat', rather than even being a faintly believable character. No explanation for his betrayal, or anything - so I wanted to explore that a little. However, the idea of him idly murdering a teenager doesn't sit too well with what I wanted him to be, so I took Cedric out of the situation. 
> 
> Besides, Cedric is an interesting character to play with - he was basically written into the story just to die, meaning that there's a lot of potential for character development. I don't know what I'll do with Cedric yet, but I think he might be an interesting addition somewhere down the line.
> 
> Voldemort is actually kinda sweet in this chapter - I don't think he will be all the time, he's still got a very sharp edge to him, but I want him to have a bit more of a personality. He's another very one-dimensional character in canon, because he's just pure pantomime villain.
> 
> And yes, Harry's stealing again. He's an abused fourteen year old boy with trash role models, can you blame him?
> 
> Comments and kudos persuade me that people are actually interested in this weird little story I'm putting together, so the more of them I get, the more excited I get about writing it. So please click that little kudos button - you don't need an account - and drop me a comment telling me what you think!


	4. The Black House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a little longer than I'd planned. I'd gotten stuck on a couple of future plot points, so I think I needed to work those out before I could decide where this was going. Luckily, I now know broadly where I'm going in the next couple of chapters, so they should be a little easier to put together. I've already got the skeleton of chapter five, I just need to flesh it out. 
> 
> It was a tricky one to write, but I really like it now it's done! If you like it too, drop me a comment and click that kudos button, please! Thanks to everyone who has commented and given kudos to the previous chapters - I really appreciate it!

The next few weeks at Privet Drive flashed by in something of a routine - Harry was almost starting to appreciate his relatives, in all of their shared obliviousness. Combining that with his enchanted wristwatch, and he was starting to suspect that they'd forgotten he was even living in their house. 

This, of course, suited him absolutely perfectly (he imagined it suited them perfectly, too), giving him far more time to learn without having to worry about chores - although he still did a few, just so they didn't absolutely flip their lid whenever they briefly remembered he was there. He continued to tend the back garden in particular, enjoying doing it nude in on the warmer mornings. It was remarkable what you could get away with when people didn't realise you were there, and the garden wasn't particularly overlooked by any of the other houses.

In the past week, the heatwave of the early part of the summer had faded, settling mostly into the lightly-breezy drizzle that was typical of a usual British summer, rather than the blistering heat he'd been contending for the past few weeks. It had come as something of a relief for Harry, because although the heat was pleasant outdoors, the temperature and humidity indoors made Harry think of a sauna - or at least, what he assumed one would be like. A couple of days after his return from Hogwarts after his fourth year, his Aunt Petunia had gone out and bought fans for herself, Vernon, and Dudley - making a fairly clear statement on Harry's place in the hierarchy of Number 4, Privet Drive. 

Harry considered going to a local store to 'procure' an electric fan to keep himself cool, but had eventually decided against it, in case he was pushing his luck testing the limitations of his wristwatch by grabbing something quite so large. Besides, his aunt would undoubtedly find out, and then he'd be in trouble, watch or no watch.

Therefore, he'd grown accustomed to sleeping either just in his underwear or outright nude this summer, with the duvet on the floor, and had lost count of the amount of times he had woken up in the early hours, often in the throes of yet another spectacular orgasm, and always with a dick as hard as his summer Potions homework (an essay on all eight uses of Sentient Hellespore - there were only seven listed in any of his texts, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the eighth was as an aphodisiac).

Despite all of this, however, and without the typical interruptions and distractions that usually got in the way at school, he'd made his way through the Ancient Runes and Arithmancy source texts at record speed. In the past few days had started to delve into the more esoteric - and therefore interesting - areas of the runic and ritual arts. It was ridiculous the amount that they _didn't_ teach you at school.

He suspected that was probably because most of it wasn't legal, but _still_. Harry's exposure to the utter insanity of the magical world so far had fostered within him a healthy disrespect for authority, so honestly, the legality - or lack thereof - didn't really fluster Harry quite so much as it should have.

Meanwhile, more and more vivid dreams had started to incorporate into his routine; not becoming any less troubling, per se, but Harry had told himself that they were just a puberty thing that his brain was latching onto at the moment, and they'd go away in their own time. It wasn't really enough to convince himself, but it was a convenient theory that allowed him to alleviate the anxiety that inevitably followed all those times that a truly mind-blowing orgasm had been preceded by visions of sharp, aristocratic cheekbones, and burning crimson eyes.

He was still perplexed by the other dreams - the ones seen through in third person. 

They hadn't all been set in the graveyard, either. Some of them were set in a sumptuous bed, where he'd watch through another's eyes (he, as ever, tried not to think about _whose_ eyes) as he descended upon the restrained boy - _himself_ \- hungrily, pressing himself deep into those tight depths, watching the boy writhe underneath him, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, covering the scar that marred it, the boy delightfully erect and debased. 

Last night's dream was set in an elegant, tasteful ballroom - looking disturbingly like the sort of place he expected someone like Malfoy to live - and he was looking on at a boy - _himself_ \- who was suspended naked in the air, dangling from from invisible ropes. He was laughing, watching as the boy whimpered under the effects of various forms of magical torture, tears flowing down his face and dripping to the marble floor, fifteen-feet-below. 

An appreciative audience, clad all in black, murmured their approval as their Lord cast darker and darker spells, eventually reaching a climax with the Cruciatus curse. Interestingly, that was the moment that Harry came - both in the dream, and as he realised moments later, as he startled into wakefulness, in real life too. Blinking into wakefulness, he glanced at his alarm clock on the other side of the room - it was a little past 3am, so he slumped back into his pillow, making a point of ignoring the slightly annoying dampness in the front of his briefs, and the fact that he was still erect.

Interestingly, Harry had realised recently that he had developed a habit of cursing in Parseltongue whenever he reached completion. He figured it just sounded like hissing to anyone else - although he hadn't actually shared the experience with anyone yet, the Gryffindor boys rarely bothered to put up silencing wards, usually just closing the curtains around their bed when they fancied a wank (Neville was the exception that proved the rule- he always put up silencing wards). Nobody had commented, but compared to hearing Seamus bellow heavily-accented Irish swear words from the far end of the room, he supposed his own whispered hissing wasn't especially remarkable.

When Harry woke again, this time well into the morning, he noted to his delight that a book he'd ordered, a week or so previously, had finally arrived. Usually, books from Flourish and Blotts came within a couple of hours of ordering - the fact that this one, _Sanguinem Magicae_ , had taken nearly a week spoke volumes of its rarity. It was a battered second-hand copy, and likely didn't come from their own shelves; for some rare grimoires, Flourish and Blotts could seek out a copy for the more discerning academic - for a hefty fee, of course. 

Gently flicking through the tissue-thin, slightly yellowed pages, he was already _fascinated_. It was a history of the use of blood as a ritual component - both to enhance an existing ritual, and a study into rituals that can only be completed with blood magic. Fortunately, it was detailed enough to provide practical instructions - despite the legal consequences of actually practising anything listed in the tome.

Blood Magic had been outlawed in Britain in its entirety a few decades prior, due to its Dark Magic connotations, and the foreword made it very clear that this information was provided for academic and historical purposes only. The book itself considerably pre-dated the amended laws by several hundred years, so he suspected the foreword had been hastily added long after it was originally published.

He'd skipped past the warning (Harry didn't even bother to read the note about how practicing any of the arts inside the tome would constitute an automatic five-year term in Azkaban), and went straight to the good stuff. 

Interestingly, most of it didn't sound that dark. Blood generally had one of two effects on a ritual - it could provide a direct conduit to a willing wizard's magical core, allowing it to steadily draw power over time, or it could tailor a ritual specifically to that wizard, increasing the power exponentially. 

Digging deeper, Harry noted that a lot of the magic involved was for healing. Seemed odd considering how illegal it was, but probably convenient in a battle scenario - there tended to be a lot of blood about. 

In any case, Harry had read enough to comfort himself that his use of it would not be noted by the Ministry, or indeed anyone who wasn't in viewing distance. He suspected that he'd struggle to find anywhere private enough to study it further once the school year started - the inevitable headline ' _Harry Potter Practices The Dark Arts_ ' in the Daily Prophet would probably not do wonders for his reputation. He'd taken a big enough risk in ordering the book in the first place.

He flipped through the book absently, scribbling down some notes in a notepad as he went.

\---

Harry struck a match, and held the blade into the fire - making sure to cover both sides of the flat, as well as the edge and tip, just to be careful - before the flame burned down. Accidentally leaving the match burning a little too long, he nearly dropped the match as it burned the tips of his fingers - fortunately not the hand he'd be using for this bit of magic - and quickly shook the his hand, extinguishing the flame. He dipped the knife into the small dish of water he'd prepared. There was a brief sizzle, and he left it there to cool.

Since first ordering from Flourish & Blotts, Harry had expanded his list of owl-order catalogues, and had been able to pick up this silver blade from Wiseacre's in Diagon Alley, for a truly eye-watering price. Harry paid it without a blink - he didn't really know how far the Potter fortune extended, but there were some things you only wanted to ever have to buy once. This one was good enough that he'd be unlikely to need another, at least in silver. And there was no way he was going to do this particular bit of magic using an old potions knife.

He stood, removed his clothes, and turned his attention to two small piles on the table next to him; salt and ash. He rubbed them both into the small patch of skin he was planning on using - at the top of his leg, on the inside. It'd be easier to inscribe the runes there. 

Also, given that this was highly-illegal magic, he thought it best that he didn't make it somewhere easily seen - he hoped that on the rare occasion someone did see him close up without his underwear on, he'd have the sense to make sure it was someone he trusted not to turn him in to the authorities.

His nudity in this case was mostly symbolic, but he'd learned early on in his research that just because something was symbolic didn't mean it was unimportant. Although this was actually technically rune magic, the fact that he was cleansing with fire, water, salt, and ash, along with the usage of the aspects of blood and body, put it dangerously close to overlapping with ritual magic, and symbolism was extremely powerful in ritual magic.

Disrespecting the symbols and traditions often meant incurring some unexpected side-effects - the books rarely went into too much detail of the likely consequences, but what he could find was grisly enough. For once, Harry had to grudgingly admit there was some sense to the pureblood obsession with tradition and history.

Harry had spent the morning doing the calculations for this ritual, and had spread out the paper with his workings, including the final drawing, on the floor next to where he would be kneeling - he'd be inscribing a small runic circle for protection, using Elder Futhark, which was quickly becoming his favourite runic alphabet. The arithmantic proportions had calculated that it would be most effective the closer it would be done to twilight, which, he confirmed with a glance out of the window, was around about now. 

He knelt down in front of a small mirror he'd placed earlier to help him see his work, and turned the drawing upside down, so he could copy it onto his leg at the correct angle - he'd almost missed the significance of having the runic circle the right way up, which would have been a disaster; inverting the proportions of any runic circle usually inverts the result, which he definitely did not want; in this case, it would render him feeble and sickly for the rest of his natural life. 

He took a deep breath, picked up the blade, and started to inscribe the drawing exactly as he'd drawn it out in his earlier notes. He started by scoring a small circle - drawing out a few beads of blood as he went. However, rather than dripping down his leg, they stayed still, quivering slightly. The room began to feel slightly pressurised, like there was too much air in it and it couldn't escape, and a slight thrumming began in his veins. 

Pain flared wherever he ran the knife, as expected, but compared to some of the things he'd been through, it wasn't too bad. The knife was extremely sharp, which helped. He consulted the sketch again, and slowly carved a mark, looking rather like a sharpened lower-case 'R' - Laguz, representing healing - inside the circle, taking time to be neat. The position of this particular rune didn't really matter, so long as it was in the circle - but if he was going to be wearing this mark for the rest of his life, he figured he might as well do it properly.

So far, so good.

The pressure built inside the room. Harry could feel a buzzing in his head, and his heart rate increased. His leg was starting to throb, but all things going to plan, the pain would be gone soon. He took a few slow breaths to allow himself to calm down, and moved on. 

At the left of the circle, on the outside, he sliced in another 'R' - this time more of a jagged upper-case one, Raido, and then some sort of crooked symbol that Harry struggled to compare to anything else, Pertho - the two symbols representing continuity. 

At the bottom, deliberately slightly off-centre, cut a mark that reminded Harry of the scar on his own forehead - Sowulo. This one represented the self, which Harry found ironic considering the jagged lightning bolt shape was probably the one thing that everyone already associated with him. Finally, cutting through the line of the circle, he drew a single vertical line - Isa, for permanence.

The buzzing inside the room increased to an almost unbearable level, and the throbbing from his leg suddenly turned as if to fire. Trying not to cry out, Harry gently put the knife back on the table, and closed his eyes to focus his willpower on the runic circle. Slowly, he imagined a golden thread extending itself from the circle into him, eventually meeting a sea of glowing gold, deep within his own imagination. As it touched, it was as if it suddenly wrenched itself from his mental grasp and snapped into place. His eyes blinked open at the abruptness.

Looking back down at his leg, there was no longer any blood visible, but the runes appeared to be shifting in his vision, and he started to feel dizzy. 

Harry clambered to his feet, and had just about made it to his bed when he collapsed bonelessly, face-down on the pillow. The dizziness peaked and a jolt of _something_ shot through his veins. The fire in his leg stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the spinning in his head stopped. However, the burning _weirdness_ that had hit his body a moment ago doubled and trebled, a kind of pressure he'd never experienced before, pounding furiously through his veins. 

Through the fog in his brain, he suddenly realised he was _hard, so hard_ , and was frantically rubbing his body against the bedcovers as if touch-starved. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into the pillow, unable to stop the gyrating motion of his hips against the bed.

The pressure in the room manifested invisible fingers and tongues, that worshipped his whole body. Every square inch of skin tingled, and he bit his lip, desperately trying and failing to hold in a moan from the overwhelming sensation. He shuddered, and his limbs twitched erratically, and the fire from his leg had moved to his penis, and it was so _good, so good, more, please more_ , and he was sobbing and biting down on his pillow to stop himself screaming and _oh god he was coming_ , and the pain and pressure flooded out of him, literally shooting it into the fabric of his duvet.

Harry wasn't really sure whether he passed out or not - but he eventually finally figured out who and where he was again, and pulled his face from the tear-and-spit soaked pillow, grimacing at the slick dampness that coated his still-hard prick, along with his tummy, and the duvet cover. He wasn't looking forward to cleaning that up.

His glasses had fogged up, from having his face pressed into the bed. He pulled them off, cleaned them, and put them back on, but it didn't seem to make any difference. He pulled them off again, and suddenly realised his vision was perfect.

"Whoa..." he whispered audibly, staring around him. His glasses had never actually suited him properly, so he took a moment to marvel at the detail he couldn't even see with his glasses on before. 

He rolled over and looked down at his left leg. Where there had been a series of cut marks, it now resembled a tattoo in crimson ink - it didn't quite blend in with the surrounding skin, but the thin lines probably wouldn't be _too_ obvious at a distance, he hoped. There were curved triangles surrounding the circle now, that he hadn't cut in, turning the circle into a stylised sun. Harry nodded to himself at that - the book said that was a common side-effect of using Sowulo in a renewing rune-circle - Sowulo was the rune of the sun, after all.

The colouring of his 'tattoo' wasn't a particular surprise, either - red runes represented healing, as opposed to blue for protection, or black for aggression.

Harry considered how he felt. He was famously injury-prone, and didn't really expect that to change any time soon, so he thought it wise to add a little protection. The eyesight was definitely an unexpected bonus - the circle he had designed was only really supposed to support his magic in helping him heal quicker from injuries and illness. He supposed that his body recognised his eyesight as a negative - he did suffer occasional headaches from squinting - even though it wasn't technically an illness in its own right. 

He inspected his fingertips on his left hand - no sign of the burn from the match earlier, and a small scab he'd had for a couple of days on the back of his hand - from a thorn in the garden - had disappeared already. 

He also didn't feel any residual pain from the ritual - although he could sense the runic circle on his leg. He could picture it in his mind's eye, without needing to look at it - he could see the golden thread, which tied directly into his magical core. There was a very gentle continuous tug, as it used a negligible amount of magic to sustain itself. If he was injured, he assumed the conduit would open wider to claim the magic it needed. He'd not really been focusing on his magical core when it was correcting his vision and so on, as he was a bit... distracted at the time. He glanced towards the duvet cover and sighed.

He considered testing to see how it went about healing the injuries, and how it felt on his magic, but he decided he'd carved himself up enough for one day.

Still, all things considered, not bad at all for an evening's work. 

Looking back at the book, he did notice one line that he'd not really given much consideration.

_'Anecdotal records indicate that some magic users experience a pleasant sensation when when using blood magic, which can manifest itself as sexual desire.'_

Harry snorted. _No shit._

\---

Severus Snape found himself on the doorstep of a muggle house, identical to every other house on the street. It was a pleasantly warm morning in August, yet he was still garbed in his usual imposing black robes, spelled to be comfortable and temperate in any weather. His mood, however, was anything but pleasant. This would be the first time in over two decades that he would see Petunia Evans, and frankly he would rather it be never, instead. She'd always blamed him for the fracture between herself and Lily, and had become a thoroughly unpleasant teenager.

He sighed, and rapped delicately on the door. After waiting a few seconds, he did so again, and the door was wrenched open. Snape was confronted by a woman with a long face and an ugly expression - the same sort of face that Narcissa Malfoy tended to pull whenever she had to publicly consort with anyone less than a fifth-generation pureblood.

"What are you doing here? This house is for normal people, not you freaks!" She snapped, even as she stepped back and gestured with a twitch of her neck for him to enter. After he'd stepped inside, she stuck her head out of the door, looking up and down the street for anyone who may have been peeking through their blinds at the oddly-dressed man who, just a moment before, was occupying her doorstep. Satisfied that she'd not be outed as _abnormal_ today, she slammed the door and turned to face him.

He sneered right back at her. "This is quite obviously not a social call - I've come to collect Harry Potter." He spoke every syllable slowly and dripping with disdain, making it entirely clear that he considered the very act of having to speak to her to be beneath him.

For a moment, Petunia looked completely nonplussed. "What... I thought he...?" she trailed off, and looked up as Harry appeared half-way down the stairs, slipping a watch into his pocket. Her entire expression suddenly changed from honest confusion to sheer disgust, scrunching up as if she'd bitten into a lemon.

"Boy! Get your things, apparently you're leaving today."

Severus stared up at Harry... Something definitely seemed different about him this year. The boy was as thin as ever, no amount of Hogwarts feasts seemed to be able to change that. His hair was longer though, the tips of his fringe brushing just past his cheekbones. He was a little taller - _still far too short for his age_ \- his facial features a little sharper, and Lily's green eyes burned out from her son's face brighter than ever. It wasn't any of that that caught his eye though, and he couldn't quite put a finger on what it was.

Harry looked startled at the sight of his potions professor, standing just inside the entrance to the house. "Professor Snape! I didn't realise you were coming today... I'll... I'll go grab my things then, I guess. Most of my school things are locked under the stairs." He turned around and disappeared into his room.

Snape stared at the cupboard for a moment, only now noticing the padlock. 

"Wait... Snape? I remember you - you're that weird boy!" Petunia screeched. "The one who encouraged Lily's... Lily's _freakishness_."

He slowly turned his gaze back on her, glare more evident than ever. "How very _pleasant_ to see you again, Petunia, after all these years." 

With a single elegant move, Severus drew his wand, and stepped forward, pointing it unshakeably between the muggle's eyes. The sneer disappeared from Petunia's face, replaced with a look of horror - and slight cross-eyedness, as she tried to focus both of her eyes on the tip of the wand that was no more than a centimetre from the bridge of her nose. 

She backed away until she hit the wall. Without breaking eye contact with the sister of his childhood friend and confidante, he slowly moved his arm until his wand was pointed towards the cupboard, and gave his wrist the the gentlest flick.

CRACK!

Petunia flinched like she'd been shot, and the padlock - now snapped cleanly in half - dropped to the floor, along with the hinges from the cupboard door. She looked very much like she'd like to back all the way through the wall, by this point. Neither moved. 

The cupboard door, ever so slowly, toppled over.

Harry reappeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a cheap rucksack that he had stuffed with books and his other meagre possessions. Severus put his wand away, and Petunia fled into the kitchen. The teen didn't seem to notice the tension in the room, or if he did, he certainly didn't comment. 

"Potter!" He snapped, as the boy descended the staircase. "Where are your glasses?"

"Oh! They broke, I, uh, I got contact lenses. Figured they'd be more use for quidditch and stuff." Snape grunted non-committally, and with a few flicks of his wand, the contents of the cupboard under the stairs - including his trunk and Firebolt - had been shrunk to the size of his palm. 

Harry placed them all in his bag, and declared that he was ready to go. He shouted a farewell to his aunt. His only reply was a whimper from the direction of the kitchen, so he shrugged and opened the door, gesturing Professor Snape through the door.

As they stepped outside of the house, Harry turned to Snape and raised an eyebrow. 

"What was that about? In there? I only disappeared for a couple of minutes, and you had your wand out, and the cupboard door had basically exploded..."

"A reunion between childhood acquaintances, Mr Potter, nothing more." replied Professor Snape in a clipped tone. "I notice your relationship with your aunt seems particularly distant."

"Uh, they don't like me much, but we came to an arrangement this year, I guess. I ignore them, they ignore me." Harry shrugged. "I guess they're all still scared that Sirius is a murderer and is going to kill them if they do anything."

"I am not an idiot, Potter, and you are an especially bad liar. Hand it over." said Snape, extending a palm.

Harry flushed. "What do you mean? Hand what over-" he replied, and suddenly remembering who he was speaking to, he added "...professor?"

"The item in your left trouser pocket." Snape glared. "Like I say, I am not an idiot - I can tell when someone is being influenced, and Petunia hardly knew you were there. You're underage, yet the Trace has not been activated - else the Ministry would be crawling all over the house, like flies on manure. Ergo, you must have an object that has been enchanted. I saw you slip something into your pocket, and your Aunt's whole demeanour changed. Hand it over." 

Harry flushed as he rummaged around and found his wristwatch. He handed it to the older man sheepishly. 

He inspected the engravings on the back. "I see." He hesitated for a moment. "This is good work, Potter. Fairly basic, but accurately calculated to your size and general shape. Did your muggleborn friend make it for you?" Snape asked.

"No! I mean, no, I did it." Harry replied, slightly offended.

Snape looked up from the watch and looked him in the eye. "Mr Potter. I do not recall Ancient Runes being among your list of elective subjects. Am I in error?" 

"Oh, um, no it's not, but I've been reading up on it and I was wondering if I could take it up this year, along with Arithmancy."

"You may not switch your elective subjects at this stage, as Professors Babbling and Vector would not be in a position to assess your abilities." Snape replied. Harry had expected something along those lines, but was still slightly disappointed. 

Snape paused for a moment, appeared to be considering something, and continued. "However, the Wizarding Examinations Authority is entirely independent of Hogwarts, and will allow you to take OWLs in any subject you choose. As you appear to have an aptitude, I would suggest you self-study for this year - I'm sure Miss Granger would be delighted to assist. If you receive a passing grade in your OWL, you are permitted to amend your elective subjects for your final two years. Out of curiosity, what were you planning to do about your other elective subjects?"

"I was going to drop Divination, since Trelawney seems fixated on predicting my death, and maybe Care of Magical Creatures. I think Hagrid would be upset, but I could maybe go down and visit a little more often to make up for it."

"The fact that you're seeking to remove Divination from your curriculum shows that there may be some brain cells in that otherwise empty head of yours." He said, handing the watch back over. "Follow me. Once we are far enough away from the wards, we will be taking a portkey."

Harry blinked. Snape had a very backhanded way of doing it, but he was pretty sure the man was bordering on friendliness. Well disguised or not, that was two compliments in one conversation - he was certain that was a new record. Maybe the man was finally warming up to him. He slipped the watch back into his pocket.

\---

Harry's response to portkeys was as dignified as ever - although a firm hand around his upper arm at least kept him mostly upright. They were in a quiet street, which he didn't recognise, outside some tall townhouses. He looked at the two in front - Numbers 10 and 14, but there didn't seem to be a 12.

He looked up at Snape. "Sir, where are we?"

"London. Read this - _silently;_ commit it to memory, and then return it to me." Snape replied curtly, handing him a small scrap of paper.

' _The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix are located at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place_ '. As Harry read the handwritten note, he looked up as a house suddenly squeezed its way in between 10 and 14 - it was a similar style as its neighbours, although generally darker - as if it were hiding in a patch of shadow that didn't touch the other houses. Harry handed back the note, and Snape strode towards the house, wandlessly burning the scrap of paper in his hand while he did so.

As they stepped inside the threshold, Harry was struck by how dark and dingy it was inside. No light seemed to make it into the entrance hall, even with the door open. The wallpaper was at least a century out-of-fashion, although with how faded and worn it was, it may well have been that old in any case. The carpet wasn't much better. To his right, a picture hung on the wall - at least, he assumed it was a picture. It was covered with a dusty set of velvet curtains, for some reason.

Blinking his eyes to adjust to the darkness, Harry turned to the potions professor. "What is this place?"

"The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. I was already aware you were a hapless student, Potter, but I thought you could at least read." Snape answered, sardonically.

Harry sighed and gave the man a sidelong look. "Yes, I grasped that, _sir_. I mean, why here? Why would Dumbledore - I assume the Order of the Phoenix is what he meant by the _old crowd_ \- decide to host some sort of anti-Voldemort movement in the evillest looking house he could find?"

" _Professor_ Dumbledore." Snape snapped. Harry just looked at him. Snape rolled his eyes, and continued. "This house is heavily warded, and big enough to host enough people, and it was available as it is the-"

"HARRY!" A voice barked from the top of the stairs, followed by the sound of thundering footsteps.

"Sirius!" Harry grinned, and ran towards his godfather, being swept into a huge hug, giggling as the man lifted him off his feet. Harry had always been small and slender for his age.

"-ancestral home of the Black family, and therefore belongs to your flea-bitten godfather." Snape muttered to himself. "Seriously, I don't know why I bother." He stalked away, unnoticed.

Sirius nuzzled into Harry's neck, squeezing the boy until he could hardly breathe. Before Harry started to turn purple, though, he gently put him back on his feet, and kissed the top of his head. "Missed you." He mumbled into Harry's hair, while still holding him tight. 

"Missed you too." Harry smiled into Sirius' t-shirt. 

"Your friends are staying here too, although they're out shopping with Molly at the moment. You'll see them in a bit though. C'mon, let me give you the tour! I grew up here, believe it or not... Until sixteen, and then I got the hell out and moved in with Jamie's folks - your grandparents. Stayed with them till I got myself my own little flat."

"I forgot you lived with my grandparents... can you tell me about them? And did dad actually like being called Jamie?"

Sirius snorted. "He hated it. Why do you think I did it? And of course I'll tell you about them. Let me show you where everything is first, and then we'll find somewhere cosy to sit and talk. Or as cosy as this house ever gets, anyway." He grabbed Harry's hand and tugged him up the stairs.

\---

A couple of hours later, and Sirius and Harry were upstairs in one of the many lounges - the house was huge, Harry hadn't ever really seen a house quite like it. Sirius was sprawled over a long half-sofa, which Sirius informed him was a _chaise-longue_ \- Harry had no idea what that was, but took Sirius' word for it. Harry, meanwhile, was on a comfortable leather wing-back chair, with his bare feet tucked up beneath him on the seat. 

Harry had his hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, with whipped cream and marshmallows, which Sirius had made himself in the kitchens, as the one house-elf he still had didn't seem particularly keen on him, or people in general. Privately, Harry thought, the hot chocolate was far too sweet, but he sipped it anyway. He wouldn't dream of telling Sirius, not after the fun he'd had making it. He's still not entirely sure how his godfather had managed to get marshmallows stuck to the _ceiling_. 

Sirius had just been reminiscing about the summers at Potter Place, and his grandparents - who Sirius referred to as 'Uncle Monty' and 'Auntie Effie'. How Harry's grandfather knew all the best firework spells, and could make it look like dragons and basilisks were fighting in the sky. How Harry's grandmother had the most wicked sense of humour, and was a better prankster than all the Marauders put together. The amount of times Sirius or James thought they'd finally caught her, and then out of nowhere, they'd end up dancing cartwheels and singing songs about how they were 'just the most perfect little Slytherin boys'. One time, him and James had done a full can-can routine in the middle of dinner before she cancelled the spell.

They sounded amazing. Harry smiled and laughed, and tried to ignore the knot of bitterness deep in his stomach. God, how he wished he could have met them. 

Sirius looked at him and smiled sympathetically, like he knew exactly what Harry was thinking.

Harry jumped as a slam was heard, followed by a piercing, wailing voice coming from the entrance.

"Freaks! Scum! Mutants and half-breeds, what gives you the right to besmirch the house of my forebears?" Followed by some muffled curses.

Harry looked at Sirius, alarmed.

He rolled his eyes. "And now you find out why I left. That screeching beast of hell would be my mother." Harry looked at him askance. "Her portrait, not _actually_ my mother - the real version was _far_ worse. Fortunately for everyone involved, she's been dead and gone for a while now. If you can keep her curtains closed, she sleeps, but loud noises tend to wake her up, and then she doesn't like it when you try to close the curtains on her again. I'd bet any money it's your friend Ron who woke her up - that boy wouldn't know subtlety if it hit in the face with a bludger."

Harry snickered. It was a fair assessment.

And right on cue, the strident voice of Molly Weasley joined the screeching chorus, somehow managing to beat Walburga Black for sheer volume. "RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO SLAM THAT DOOR!"

"Told you."

\---

Hours later, in bed that night, at Number Four Privet Drive, Petunia Dursley had been fretting to her husband about that _nasty_ boy that Lily used to know, and their _freakish_ nephew. 

"Honestly, I was so sure he'd already gone away before now... I can't remember seeing him here for weeks." 

Vernon considered the point in great detail, weighed up what she'd said, and in response, he snored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the slight change in direction that this story has taken, there were a few scenes I'd written for later on in the fic which won't be used anymore. I might publish them as one-shots, or I might make a sequel fic just consisting of out-takes and omakes from this story - let me know if that's something you'd be interested in! 
> 
> I've also got a couple of new stories on the go, too - I'm going to try to get a little more done on them before I start publishing, though. I'm quite excited by the core-concepts, though. 
> 
> On a side-note, I have an interesting relationship with canon-Dursleys. Like, yes they're horrible and abusive guardians to Harry, but I think Dumbledore has a lot to answer for. Like, he left a baby boy on a doorstep, with a note that might as well have said "Your sister died last night, here's her son, deal with it x". 
> 
> Seriously though, who leaves a child on a doorstep? Like, it was still dark - exactly how long was a fifteen-month-old Harry out there? What if he woke up and wandered off?
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please click the kudos button and/or leave me a comment - I really enjoy reading them, and I reply to pretty much everything.


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